Several ladies and one gentleman have been busy crocheting prayer shawls as part of a ministry project at the First Baptist Church of Pontiac.

Since November 2009, Covered with Prayers has been hard at work crocheting shawls for those in need.

Virginia Asper, who has contributed many shawls, offered her thoughts on what goes into making the shawls and what makes them different from any others of their kind.

“When I give one out, I usually explain that there is no magic in yarn. It’s just yarn with some loops,” Asper said. “It becomes important because it’s a symbol of being surrounded by prayers and it’s a symbol of feeling the prayers of the family around you when you hold that shawl around you.”

Debbie Verdun, who also contributes, added, “You pray as you work on them. I like to know the person I’m making it for because it makes it more personal.”

“Our prayers do change,” Heath added. “I found out when I first started doing this that I was just whipping these out all the time and I had kind of a generic prayer. It got to the point where it wasn’t really personal and maybe it wasn’t as heartfelt as it should have been. When I finally got to make one for someone I knew that was going to receive it, it changed.”

The group is made up of a handful of ladies and one man who puts the shawls together. But some of the shawls come to the church anonymously, so nobody really knows how many people contribute. They don’t even know how many have been handed out to people in need, but all agreed that it’s been in the hundreds.

“We’ve faced a few issues, like where are we going to store all these, who gets them and how often are we going to have them blessed,” Heath said. “If someone’s in need of a shawl, we don’t ask them what the problem is or what they need it for because it’s none of our business; they just need it.

“We have expanded. When we first started, they were given for health issues, grief or any other problems, but now we’re including celebratory times,” Heath added. “When we had our baptisms a few weeks ago, the candidates received shawls. We’ve also given them for baby dedications, graduations and weddings.”

Page 2 of 2 - The group is expanding its services once again to include extended family, community and friends.

“I would say that our congregation is pretty well saturated now,” Heath said.

It was also mentioned that shawls have been given out during TeenServe and through the church’s food pantry.

The group is open to anyone who would like to join its once-a-month gatherings. Any crocheting skill level is welcome, even if a person goes there to learn to crochet, as Christina Beck experienced.

“I had zero skill level when I started. They help me along,” Beck said.

Heath added that Beck is progressing rather nicely.

Verdun, who used to teach crocheting, originally joined to help teach people who wanted to learn.

As the members of the church have learned, the prayer shawls really can come in handy at some of the most unexpected times.

“We had a man come to our evening service and he was experiencing car trouble. He was from out west someplace and he was traveling to North Carolina for his brother’s funeral,” Heath recalled. “That was one of the first things that (Pastor) Jim (Wolfe) did was give him a prayer shawl just so he would remember that we were praying for him.”

The shawls are prayed over during production and they are later anointed during a church service.

“We lay them on the altar rail and Jim anoints them with oil,” Asper explained.

Some shawls have even appeared overseas, including places like central Africa and Morocco, and also throughout the United States. Tags have also recently been added to each shawl.

“We have tags on them now with prayers that are appropriate for a child and there’s also a prayer for adults,” Heath said.

If interested in joining the group, receiving a prayer shawl or donating to the ministry, contact the First Baptist Church office at 815-842-4321.

“We fund pretty much everything ourselves, but if anyone wants to donate money or yarn, we will always accept those donations to defray the cost,” Heath said.